


lost cause creek

by ohvictor



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: ???? - Freeform, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Canon Compliant, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Screenshots, Secret Crush, canon-typical itaru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-20 18:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18530497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohvictor/pseuds/ohvictor
Summary: Itaru indulges his crush on Chikage by playing with the avatar settings in AC:PC. Banri saw everything.





	lost cause creek

**Author's Note:**

> this is set uhhh nebulously after act 5, probably also after kniroun stage. featuring liberal use of screenshots. thank you to (1) friend who helped me get acpc screenshots, (2) friend who came up with water emblem: heroes, (3) archie in general. your brains are all so huge
> 
> title is a play on lost lure creek, one of the locations in animal crossing: pocket camp
> 
> eta: this takes place after part 2 of the main story!

After a long day of work and rehearsal, it’s a relief to wind down. With senpai being on the astral plane (or, somewhere out of the house) Itaru discards his pants and suit jacket as soon as his bedroom door shuts behind him, and practically barrel rolls into his sweatpants. It would be much easier if he could change outfits just by spinning around like in a game, or even by equipping new clothes (automatically replacing the old ones, which would appear, neatly folded, in his closet), but, thankfully for his newfound theatre career fraught with quick changes in the wings, Itaru perfected the art of changing clothes fast back in high school.

Now that his legs are free from the chains of business professional attire, Itaru sheds his dress shirt too, and flops on his bed in just his t-shirt and sweatpants. He didn’t get a chance to do his dailies at work, having back-to-back meetings all afternoon, and then he hadn’t had a chance to play before driving home. So he has to do a lot of tasks now. He flicks all his open apps closed to maximize operating power, and then opens the first of his mobage, ready to use up all the LP/SP he’s been wasting due to his busy day.

What a pain... Thinking about the grinding he could’ve done if he’d managed to sneak a bathroom break makes him antsy. There’s an event going on in Granyellow Fantasy and he’ll have to have one hand grinding it later when he’s streaming; luckily it’s a casual stream, so he can split his focus between games. After GYF, it’s got to be Water Emblem: Heroes, but looking at the current gacha depresses the hell out of Itaru (he’s already pulled five times with no luck...) so he only grabs his login bonuses and then moves on to the next app.

As he moves through the page on his phone dedicated to mobage apps, he realizes he’s subconsciously leaving Animal Crossing: Backpack Camp for last. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy the app. Despite what some gamers might say about them, the Animal Crossing series of games has always been close to Itaru’s heart, and he’s played them all faithfully since he was a kid. When ACBC was announced, he downloaded it the day it was released, and has played most of the events since.

The only thing is that none of the male hairstyles really match Itaru’s hair. This has been fairly constant across Animal Crossing Games, but since this is a social game, he feels the disconnect between his IRL self and his in-game avatar more strongly. Around when the game launched, he began finding creative ways to avoid his hairstyle issues. For a while, he dressed his avatar up as certain characters, but it’s not as though Lancelot’s hair translates to ACBC any better than Itaru’s, and using other characters doesn’t feel quite right. Then he tried wearing hats, but he doesn’t like that aesthetic of having no hair at all. So now he’s back to trying out different hairstyles, seeing which one irritates him the least.

After he finishes filling animal requests and choosing new furniture to build, he opens the hairstyle menu and starts poring over the male hairstyles. He’s tried out nearly all of them over the past month. One of the criteria is whether Banri says something about it (and _what_ he says), and Banri hasn’t commented on Itaru’s most recent choice — but Banri’s also been busy with school, so the jury’s still out. Idly, Itaru flips back to the start of the appearance settings and selects the girl avatar. Why not, right? There’s more diversity in the longer hairstyles for girls.

None of them look any closer to flesh Itaru than the boys’ hairstyles he’s already tried. There is one, though, that does catch his eye: short and poofy, with fluffy bangs. Itaru frowns and selects it, then tabs to the color menu and turns the hair green. To complete the look, he switches the eye color to blue, and then squints at the avatar he’s created.

It’s... Senpai. Pastel-washed, since his hair and eyes are somewhat darker IRL than the game allows, and the avatar settings don’t include glasses or other accessories — but senpai nonetheless. Itaru stares at the little smiling character on the screen until his eyes hurt, and then curses his fingers for creating such a thing.

Then he saves the avatar as is, and opens his clothing menu.

Over the next ten minutes, Itaru dresses senpai up in various combinations of clothes from his ACBC inventory. There’s work senpai, in a dress shirt and slacks; Itaru puts devil horns on his head to complete the image of his devilish senpai. There’s spy senpai, the mysterious side who does things every day that he’d never dare tell Itaru, things Itaru can’t even imagine without referencing a video game. There’s Mario collab senpai... Yeah, that one’s just because he has the items. And then there’s Mankai senpai, in casual clothes, with a hat that reminds Itaru of the jacket he wore for Valentine’s Day and a t-shirt with an A for April.

Selfishly, he likes Mankai senpai best.

The whole affair is very self-indulgent, and the feeling of _enjoying something he shouldn’t_ creeps up on him like fog, settling around him until he struggles to breathe from the weight of it. When he can’t bear it anymore, he force-closes ACBC and takes a deep breath of clear air.

It doesn’t mean anything that he thought it was cute to dress up his little camp manager avatar as senpai. Any of the others would think it was cute; Sakuya or Citron would probably light up like a phone getting a notification if Itaru showed them, and even Tsuzuru might placate him with a “That’s sweet, Itaru-san” if he saw. Masumi would give him one of his unimpressed stares, but he would probably dress _his_ avatar like Director without a second thought, so he’s disqualified. (Not that it’s the same thing, at all.) Senpai himself, of course, will never be allowed to see, because— Thinking about senpai seeing it feels like prodding a bruise. Or, maybe, like a door opening. Like the contract Itaru established when senpai moved in being tossed into a recycling bin like an afterthought. Like... Like Itaru cares about him, more than just a roommate and a troupemate and a coworker.

... Anyway, senpai won’t see. Itaru forces the idea of ACBC firmly out of his mind, and heaves himself off his bed instead. It’s time to shower and get into position for his stream, grind mindlessly until it’s time to go to bed, and do the whole thing over in the morning.

-

By the time his stream finishes, and he’s made enough progress in GYF to call it a night, it’s nearly two in the morning. Itaru fumbles his way to bed in the dark, curls up under the blankets, and brings his phone very close to his face, straining the charger cord as much as he dares, so he can make out the screen for one last mobage check. He drains his LP/SP in a few games, stares longingly at WE:H (if he can last until payday, and ◯◯-chan comes home for him _this_ time, he’ll be golden), and opens ACBC as an afterthought. As it loads, though, his eyelids grow heavier and heavier, and he falls asleep before his campsite appears onscreen.

-

The next morning (scant hours after Itaru went to bed), Itaru’s alarm goes off way earlier than his body wants to wake. He rolls over and grabs his phone, as if starting to play mobage will help him get out of bed faster (it won’t, but it _will_ make him late for work). He goes to close whatever apps he had open the night before and finds ACBC open, and his half-awake consciousness floods with memories of the previous night. As he opens the app, he discovers something even worse: he’d left his avatar saved looking like senpai, for...god, several hours, at least.

He rolls over onto his belly and buries his face in his pillow. Hopefully no one on his friends list who knows him IRL saw his avatar— Well, that’s banking on the slim chance that Banri didn’t check ACBC during the night, which is almost certainly NG. Itaru knows Banri was playing GYF last night as well; he saw that irritating NEO IGN at the top of his friends list a few times. Hopefully he, like Itaru, was half-asleep and didn’t pay attention. Itaru has a few other Mankai Company members added in ACBC, but most of them keep better hours than he and Banri do. So the only real threat is Banri, which is a constant in Itaru’s life. Damn that kid.

Banri won’t be awake until after Itaru gets to work, though, so Itaru won’t find out his fate until later. This time, though, he remembers to change his ACBC avatar back to the usual Itaru outfit, and then pops around to a few of the campsite locations just to make sure it saves. There; now no one will know. (Except his camera roll, where he’s squirreled away quite a few screenshots.)

Satisfied, he gets out of bed and heads for the bathroom for a Sakyo-approved five-minute shower.

-

Itaru’s been home and crashed on his bed for barely five minutes when his door bangs open. Itaru startles, checks downwards to make sure he’s wearing pants, and looks up to find Banri grinning at him from the doorway.

“What do you want,” Itaru says, with a nasty feeling that he knows exactly what Banri is here for.

“Why was your ACBC avatar dressed like Chikage-san last night?” Banri asks gleefully.

“You must have the wrong guy,” Itaru says, feigning a yawn. He changed it back, right? Maybe he can get away with this. Gaslighting a friend. Well, he still wouldn’t be the worst offender in Mankai Company—hell, even in room 103.

“You’re so full of shit,” Banri snorts. He walks across the room and throws himself onto Itaru’s bed, and unlocks his phone screen, holding it fully in Itaru’s view. He opens his camera roll and produces a screenshot of his ACBC friends list, which he shows Itaru triumphantly.

Itaru stares at the screen, and his mistakes stare back. The image timestamp shows that it’s from the previous night, meaning Banri sat on it for several hours as some sort of twisted college kid prank, although he _did_ wait until Itaru wasn’t at work to show him; mercifully, as the notification could have arrived while Itaru was around people and unable to hide his shame. But Banri’s a brat, so maybe he just wanted to see Itaru embarrassed in person, the bastard.

Itaru can feel his cheeks flaring red, but he keeps his chin up. “Could’ve been a glitch.”

“I repeat: you’re full of shit.” Banri swipes to the next photo, which— If Itaru could pull out a bullshit excuse for the first one being fake, he definitely can’t now. It’s a screenshot of Banri visiting Itaru’s campsite, with Itaru dressed like senpai. The text bubble reads, cheerfully: _You just met up with taruchi! What would you like to do?_

There’s nothing Itaru can really say to defend himself. He reaches for Banri’s hair to give him a distraction noogie, but Banri rolls out of the way—damn those Autumn guys and their high agility stats—and continues grinning at Itaru. “No explanation, huh, Itaru-san?”

“What do you want me to say,” Itaru grouses.

“Why were you dressed as Chikage-san!”

“No reason!”

Banri scoffs. “There has to be a reason.”

“I was half-asleep,” Itaru grumbles. Now that he’s remembering the previous night, though, an innocent explanation presents itself. “One of the hairstyles reminded me of him, and I got carried away.”

“Yeah, a totally reasonable explanation. I also dress my ACBC avatar up like members of my troupe that I feel totally platonically for.”

Itaru groans. “Fuck off.”

“Did I hit a nerve?” Banri sits up and leans closer, examining Itaru’s face. Itaru lifts one arm to shove him away, but can’t quite reach. “Listen, I’m just trying to be a good friend here, okay—”

“That’s such bullshit.”

“...okay, yeah, I wanted to tease you, but I have a _second_ motive, which is: old man feelings,” Banri says, spreading his hands dramatically. “If you have feelings for Chikage-san, you can talk to me about it. We’re friends, and stuff.”

“I can’t believe I got called an old man and then told I can rely on you,” Itaru says. “Can I have a refund?”

“If you _like_ him,” Banri presses, probably taking some weird pleasure out of this, “there are better ways to express it than dressing your ACBC avatar up like him. Like talking to him about it.”

“I’m not going to talk to him,” Itaru mumbles.

“Oh?” Banri scoots closer, rumpling the duvet cover as he goes. “So you admit you have feelings for him?”

“Yeah, obviously I have some sort of feelings for the guy I work _and_ dorm with.” Itaru picks up his phone, abandoned on the pillow next to him, and opens up a mobage at random. There’s an uncomfortable feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, and he wants to pretend it’s gacha anxiety.

“Whatever,” Banri says. Itaru can feel the kid watching him, and he vents his agitation by tapping too fast through the news popups. “I can’t make you face your feelings if you don’t want to, and I’m not your troupe leader or your boss, so it’s not my job to make you, either. I know you’ll still try and kick my ass at games, and you’ll still stay up til ass o’clock ranking with me, and you’ll still have stupidly fluffy hair and look better with it than all the nobodies in your office.” Banri pauses to tuck a strand of his own hair back into place behind his ear. “None of that shit changes when you’re repressing things, because you’ve been repressing shit the whole time and you’ve been the same. But you’d be _happier_ if you acknowledged your feelings and acted on them. And if you were happier, you’d be even better at games, and maybe you’d give me an actual challenge for once.” He grins toothily. “So think about it.”

“Can you please leave now,” Itaru deadpans.

“Okay, okay.” Banri rolls off the bed and lands lightly on his feet, brushing his hair out of his eyes as he rights himself. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Sure.”

Itaru waits until Banri leaves, shutting the door behind himself, and then grabs a pillow and puts it on his face, mushing it against his eyes until all he can see is darkness.

It’s not fair that Banri is good at everything, including telling Itaru how to live his life. Yeah, maybe he liked having his little pastel senpai in his fantasy game world where senpai can’t reject him; maybe he’s a coward who’d prefer squashing his feelings under layers of idle amusements rather than take a chance at something that might make him really happy. So sue him. It’s not fair that Banri doesn’t have anything Itaru can poke at in return; he can’t even say something like _It’s not like you’re chasing your happiness either_ , because Banri totally _is_. That’s probably how he knows what to say to Itaru, which is supremely unfair. It’s fucked up that this jerk teenager has more useful life experience than Itaru, except it’s super true. All the kids in Mankai Company are way cooler than Itaru, and that’s just another thing he’s _repressing_ , according to Banri.

Itaru’s phone screen has gone dark with inactivity. He unlocks it again and opens his camera roll, tabs to the screenshots folder, and pulls up one of the screenshots from his ACBC misadventures last night, one of Mankai senpai standing under a cherry blossom tree in Itaru’s campsite.

...god, he really likes it.

He’d love to dwell some more on everything Banri said, except he actually wouldn’t love that at all. Right on cue, as if his phone _wants_ him to slip back into fantasy world, a full SP notification pops up, and he taps it gratefully, closing his camera roll and opening up a game that’ll occupy at least ten minutes of his evening with grinding. If he can just spend the rest of the evening like this, that little nasty feeling in his chest will shrink smaller and smaller until it disappears altogether, and he’ll be fine again. That’s all he has to do.

**Author's Note:**

> i used a work skin for this to make sure the images don't look weird for mobile; here's the [tutorial](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15768186)!
> 
> i changed my [twitter handle](http://twitter.com/futarinoshoutai) recently! one of these days i'll get around to changing all my end note links... but not today


End file.
